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RESIDENCY PERMITS

Can I gain Spanish residency through marriage or partnership?

Is it possible to gain Spanish residency through a marriage or partnership? Read on to find out more and discover if your situation makes you eligible.

Published: 14 April 2022 15:24 CEST
wedding
Photo: ANURAG1112 / Pixabay

So, you’ve fallen in love and have decided to marry or enter into a civil union with your partner, the only problem is that your partner lives in Spain and you don’t have Spanish residency to be able to live with them. Is it possible to apply for Spanish residency through marriage?

The short answer is yes, it’s totally possible to gain Spanish residency through marriage or a civil union, but different situations will apply, depending on your particular circumstances.

In Spain, a civil union is known as a pareja de hecho and grants you many of the same benefits as marriage, however there are a few main differences. Read here to find out what the differences are and which is better. 

Residency through marriage to an EU citizen

If you are from a non-EU country and marry or enter into a civil partnership with someone from Spain or the EU, then gaining a Spanish residency permit is quite straightforward.

In this case, you will apply for a residence permit for Spain as a family member of an EU citizen or a tarjeta de residencia de familiar comunitario. This will enable you the right to come and live and work in Spain under the same conditions as those from the EU.

You must apply for the residence permit within a period of 90 days or three months after arriving in Spain and can do so by making an appointment at your local immigration office. Along with your ID documents, you will need to bring a completed Modelo EX-18 form found here.

The main requirements for this are:

  • Your spouse or partner must be from an EU country
  • They must have Spanish residency
  • They must be legally working, be a student or have sufficient economic funds to be able to support you
  • Your marriage must have been registered in an EU country, if not you will have to get your marriage certificate apostilled or might have to get your marriage re-registered in Spain.

If you and your partner meet all the requirements, you will be granted permission to live in Spain for five years and are able to renew it after this time.

READ ALSO – Q&A: Can EU nationals bring non-EU family members over to Spain?

What about if my partner/spouse is not an EU citizen?

If you marry or enter into a civil partnership with someone who is not Spanish or an EU citizen but has residency in Spain, the good news is that you’re able to join them and gain Spanish residency via the family reunification visa.

The main requirement is that your partner must have been living in Spain for a period of one year already and have already been granted a visa renewal for a further year or more.

If your partner has not already been living in Spain for one year, you will need to wait to be able to join them. The only way that you can join your partner immediately rather than waiting the rest of the time is if your partner has an EU long-term residency permit from another EU country, has an EU Blue Card or has a student visa.

The main requirement is that your partner has to prove that they have the financial means to support you. This means that they must demonstrate they earn an amount equivalent to or greater than 150 percent of the IPREM (Public Multiple Effects Income Indicator). For 2022 this equals €868.53 per month.

If your partner is not working, they will have to prove they have sufficient savings, as well as private health insurance.

READ ALSO: How can non-EU nationals bring family members to live in Spain?

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For members

VISAS

Does Spain accept savings for the digital nomad visa if earnings aren’t enough?

One of the main questions applicants for Spain's digital nomad visa have is whether they can provide proof of savings if they don't meet the visa's high income requirements. This is what Spanish authorities told The Local Spain.

Published: 19 April 2024 13:18 CEST
Does Spain accept savings for the digital nomad visa if earnings aren't enough?

The Digital Nomad Visa or DNV is often referred to as visado de teletrabajador de carácter internacional on most of the official websites in Spain and became available for the first time at the beginning of 2023. 

There are a long list of requirements you need to meet in order to be eligible for the DNV, including having no more than 20 percent of your income come from Spain and having some type of social security agreement or paying it yourself.

One of the most challenging requirements, however, is the amount of income you need to earn.

The UGE (Unidad de Grandes Empresas y Colectivos Estratégicos), the body that deals with these visas and the one you apply to states that you need to prove you have monthly earnings of at least 200 percent of the minimum interprofessional salary (SMI), or minimum wage.

Currently in 2024, this means that you need to prove you have earnings of €2,646 per month or €31,752 per year. 

READ ALSO: Is the income requirement for Spain’s digital nomad visa a gross or net figure?

If your partner or children are accompanying you to Spain, you will also need to prove you have extra money in order to support them.

If you’re applying for yourself and your partner, you will need to prove you earn an extra 75 percent of the minimum wage. This currently equates to an extra €1,984.50 per month on top of the €2,646 just for you, so a total of €4,630.50 per month. 

For each additional family member after this, such as children, you will have to prove you have an extra 25 percent of the SMI, which is an extra €661.50 per month.

Many applicants don’t quite meet the threshold and often wonder if the authorities will accept savings in order to make up the shortfall.

This is asked time and time again in many social media groups associated with the DNV.

Can you provide savings for Spain’s digital nomad visa application if earnings aren’t enough?

As with many bureaucratic processes in Spain, the answer is not completely straightforward.

Several members of the Spanish Digital Nomad Visa Facebook group have said that they have successfully been granted the DNV by providing evidence of savings in bank accounts, while many others say that they’ve been rejected because they haven’t earned enough and savings were not able to be taken into account.

One member of the group wrote: “It is an income based visa and therefore savings will only be taken into account if there is a small gap between the requirement and the income. But even then, it is still up to UGE to decide whether they want to accept it or not”.

Another member confirmed this by saying that her lawyer told her that if she has a small shortfall in income, the extra can be made up of savings over £20k.

Someone else added: “I applied without the minimum income requirement covered. I complemented it with savings and got approved”.

READ ALSO: Spain clarifies which digital nomads will get lower tax rates

But others have been told something completely different and been told by their lawyers that savings can’t be used to apply for the DNV at all.

With so many different answers it can be tricky to figure out the truth.

The best option is to contact the UGE itself and find out, which is what we did. 

“The requirement is to prove that the income which will be obtained as remuneration meets the minimum requirements,” the UGE told The Local Spain regarding the €2,646 a month threshold.

“However, if the difference is not much (there is no specific amount but rather it depends on the overall analysis of the application), savings that cover the difference for at least the first two years of the (DNV) authorisation can be assessed”.

Therefore, we can conclude that DNV applicants with monthly earnings that are slightly below the digital nomad visa requirement may be able to successfully provide savings to cover the shortfall, but in the end Spanish authorities decide on a case-by-case basis.

One DNV applicant told other digital nomads on a Facebook forum that the UGE replied to them with: “Any means of evidence admitted by law may be used and an individualised analysis will be carried out”.

Again, it’s likely this will depend on the amount of shortfall you have. We don’t know exactly what the threshold is, so it’s really speculation.

Perhaps if you only need a couple of hundred euros more to meet the income requirement, you may be able to make it up with savings, but if it’s a large amount, it’s likely you’ll get denied.

There’s no one-fits-all answer unfortunately. It’s of course more risky to apply if you don’t meet the income requirement, but if you really can’t make it work, your best bet is to try to submit evidence of your savings along with your application to see if you’ll be accepted.

They may ask for extra evidence later on down the line or you may be successful first time. Of course, there’s every possibility you’ll be rejected too.

READ ALSO: What digital nomads in Spain wish they’d known before applying

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